


Freudian Slip

by cognomen



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen, hannibal acca
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abigail explores his hands first; large, but with a grace that is more in their deliberation than any more willowy sense of the word. The span of them fascinates her, like suddenly finding herself with eagle's wings when she is used to the thin, long reach of a dove.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freudian Slip

Abigail explores his hands first; large, but with a grace that is more in their deliberation than any more willowy sense of the word. The span of them fascinates her, like suddenly finding herself with eagle's wings when she is used to the thin, long reach of a dove.

There is a strange muscle memory in them, too - of slicing, chopping, separating. She likes that - whatever this is, a dream, a false memory, hypnotism or something stranger. The experience is fascinating as it is unreal.

"The strength must make it easier," she tells herself, aloud. The voice slides out of her from somewhere deeper than she's used to. Accented, made for murmured confidences and confidence when it was allowed any real volume.

Hannibal's hands. Hannibal's voice. Made sense, they were a match to the body she somehow wore, shaking a soft fringe of bangs from her eyes.

Not, however hard she concentrated her efforts, Hannibal's memories. All she had were her own, faintly comforting. 

"So what do I do with it," she asks herself, and the sound of his voice both worries and pleases Abigail. She allows herself her wickedest smile, transformed by Hannibal's features, and the gleaming stainless steel surfaces of his kitchen into a demon's grin.

He was made for it, despite all his properness and reserve.

She says what few lines from Shakespeare she remembers, broadcasting her voice loud enough to resound dull echoes in his vast kitchen. 

Then she sings.

She doesn't know any opera, which is what she thinks would be best - in clipped, precise notes. Hannibal does not have much of a range.

Abigail is three quarters of the way through 'Killer Queen' at the top of Hannibal's vocal capacity, and trying to decide if she remembers enough lyrics to manage the 'Time Warp' when she learns that Will Graham lets himself into Hannibal's house without knocking. 

That he knows - expects, even - that the side door is unlocked, at least when Hannibal is home. He knows he will not come to any harm by entering it unannounced. Right into Hannibal's prime territory.

Not even bucks in rut had quite so much tolerance for each other she thinks, stilling her voice. Abigail quickly finds something to do with her hands. 

"I didn't picture you as a singer," Will says, eyes and posture wary. He's aware of his intrusion, of the breach involved in making a safe, private place into something that has suffered intrusion. 

"I'm not one," Abigail tells him, and wonders what Will Graham sees, looking at Hannibal and seeing her inside him.

Maybe nothing he recognizes, or maybe he knows her instantly but doubts himself.

"I'll forget I heard," Will reassures her, and then stands obtrusively in the kitchen, out of place amongst the immovable fixtures. 

"You needn't forget," Abigail says, and supposes she can stop washing her hands.

His hands.

Whatever.

"Just don't expect a duet," Will make an attempt at a joke, pulls his face into a smile he obviously does not feel. 

She thinks his efforts at courtship - and she isn't sure yet if these are the timid reaching of a deer for an apple in the hand - friendship or something else, or if they are simply the most devotion Will is capable of. Given his limits... well she knows what Will gives her, and what Hannibal does.

"Is there a case?" she asks, in Hannibal's voice. "Or have you finally agreed to make a social call?"

"It can't be both?" Will blocks his eyes with his glasses, but Hannibal is tall enough to see over them, if he stands close enough. 

Abigail does not stand him close enough.

She has no idea if that would make Will feel safer or more threatened.

"Easily," she says, trying to decide what Hannibal would say. "Do you want tea or coffee?"

In the middle of the offer she realizes she doesn't know where Hannibal keeps his tea. 

Probably not the same place as those trippy mushrooms, but she'd have paid good money to see Will try those. 

Will lifts both his hands over his face, and scrubs at it, in a washing motion. Abigail resists the urge to do the same or to ask if that makes him feel any cleaner. 

She doesn't ask if he sometimes still feels her blood on his skin.

"Coffee," he says, through his fingers. She retrieves the jar, and tries not to mess up when she makes it. Hannibal could stand a normal coffee maker.

"I dreamed that Abigail Hobbs was in a coma," he says, and she drops the lid to the pot, stills it from clattering too loud on the counter.

She doesn't know what to say.

"I- I called the hospital," he admits, making an angry slash with his dominant hand.

The m motion is like the ones her father made, but without the eye contact.

"They said she was fine. Talking. Smiling."

"Does the dream bother you?" she asks, and then the words feel wrong, but she cant' take them back.

"I don't know. I don't know if it should mean something." 

Abigail listens, pours them each a cup of coffee when she supposes it's ready. It does not look as rich as the coffee Hannibal usually makes, but she supposes it still at least looks like coffee.

It takes her almost that long to think of something appropriately Hannibal-esque to say. "Perhaps you are just worried."

"I'm not sure why I should be," Will confesses. "It seems like the sort of dream you'd have if you were worried someone was slipping away from you but I'm - not sure I ever had the sort of closeness that would merit that."

She considers her answer, watches Will sip the coffee and then wrinkle his nose, reach absently for the stainless steel container that she supposes must hold the sugar. He knows just where it is.

"You worry that you overvalue your relationship with Abigail?" 

"I just worry," Will says, sharp corners, and he sighs, takes a longer sip of coffee, his elbow in the air as if halfway between warding someone off and reaching out to pull them closer. "I was glad she was okay, and then I wondered if she wouldn't be more okay if I'd never involved myself."

After a moment, Abigail realizes what this is about. Whatever this dream - hypnotism - whatever it was - she could see this strange dilemma from all different sides now, though the part she plays currently isn't quite the one she would ever have expected.

"Perhaps that's what she needs right now, someone to worry for her," she says, in Hannibal's voice. "There are very few people in the world who could understand her situation enough to stand on her side."

When Abigail takes a sip of the coffee she made, she feels her own features trying to twist at the burnt bitterness, and she wonders how Will had not immediately known something was wrong. Distraction, perhaps. 

"We are what she has. A daughter may not always appreciate her father," she says after a moment. "But someday she'll understand things from a different perspective."

The pun slides out unnoticed, amused in Hannibal's voice, and she thinks how else he uses the tone, before she manages a smile that does not feel too out of place either. 

When she opens her mouth to continue, she finds herself alone in her room at the hospital, eyes on the trees outside the window, with an easy peace in her mind, and when her voice emerges, it is her own again. 

She does not need to sing the Time Warp to know how it sounds in her voice, but she hums it under her breath and finds she remembers more of the words than she thought.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Hannibal ACCA charity, and lazily left unposted until now.


End file.
